Three urges customers to lobby Ofcom over BT’s spectrum stash

The Make The Air Fair campaign beams its gripe onto BT's headquarters. But will customers realise that the message is anti-BT?

Jeff Spicer/PA Wire

A week on since Three won a minor victory in its airwaves war
with the UK's communications regulator, the mobile operator has begun
urging its customers to swamp Ofcom with letters to push for limits on
BT and Vodafone's ownership of spectrum.

Three and chums have been beaming a cartoon
superhero image of Ofcom boss Sharon White onto landmark buildings (and
BT's headquarters) in London to try to ram home their message.

The "Make The Air Fair" campaign, which is
backed by Three, TalkTalk, CityFibre, Gamma, Relish, and the Federation
of Communication Services, breathlessly calls on customers to apply
pressure to Ofcom.

Last week, Ofcom said that BT/EE would be
barred from bidding for chunks of 4G spectrum in its upcoming auction.
But Three boss David Dyson accused the regulator of failing "to make the
big decisions needed to deliver the best outcome for the UK."

On Monday, he claimed that "the UK mobile market is broken at a critical time." Dyson added:

Spectrum is a national asset that
should benefit every citizen. If it’s all controlled by one or two
massive businesses then you can’t have effective competition and
everyone loses out. This is the moment for the British public to stand
up and fight for real choice and better mobile services.

Ofcom has repeatedly insisted that the UK's
mobile market is strongly competitive compared to many of its
counterparts in Europe. It said: "We’ve announced plans to meet the
growing demand for mobile broadband, releasing more airwaves in a way
that safeguards competition and encourages innovation. We welcome
evidence from all parties before we finalise our decisions."

The watchdog revealed last week that it had no
plans to impose a cap on the amount of 3.4 GHz spectrum that mobile
operators can bid for, because the band isn't immediately useable—paving
the way for BT/EE and other carriers to bid for those frequencies
without any limits. Which means there could be many more spats as 5G
tech comes into play.